The Stars Still Shine
by Violet Scarlet Lily
Summary: Written for the first real round of The Writer at HPFC. Just a little oneshot of Harry's thoughts after the battle. One person can hold on to their life as well as they can hold water in their palm. There's no control – there can't be any control.


**Ok here is my story for the first real round of The Writer at HPFC. :) It's a little oneshot of what happens the afternoon and night after the Battle of Hogwarts. Hope you enjoy!**

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Everything is quieter than it was before. So quiet, so silent, so…_empty._

But they've won. It should not be silent here. They are the victors.

He thinks it's too high a price to pay for a victory. The endless, endless, endless rows of bodies are his _family_. The lifeless bodies with empty eyes lying on the floor, pressed together like they are huddling for warmth. But no, no, those bodies are cold, so cold, and no breath of life could bring a fire back into their bodies, a spark back to their eyes.

And he _knows _that every frozen body on the floor of the Great Hall is _his _fault. Every mother of every soul stolen from its body has a right to hate Harry. Because, all these people…they died for him.

Lupin, one of his father's best friends. Lupin, who was like a father to him. Lupin, who has a son – a son that will grow up not knowing his father. Remus Lupin…the last Marauder.

Lupin who never got to live life with his wife in a world without war. His son, born into a war, and now, he is fatherless. Harry swears on Lupin's unmoving body that he will take care of that child.

Tonks. Tonks, who was young and vivacious and clever and colorful. Now she is gone too. She is gone, gone, _gone_. Her once animated face is devoid of any emotion. Because inside her, _there is no soul_. Not anymore.

Her son will grow up without mother or father – those sacred words will be foreign to the tiny boy, to little Teddy Lupin. No childish hands will clap and grasps at Tonks' pig nose or her ever-changing hair.

Fred – Fred who was half of George's personality. Fred, who died for him. Fred who never stopped joking, even to his death. Fred, who everyone loved, who never did anything to hurt anyone. These were good people – good people who were dying – are dying – are dead.

People are _dead_, and it is Harry's fault. They are cold, blue, dead, _empty_, and it isn't fair that he has to stay to try to piece together the broken families left behind – the broken families who may never forgive him.

Colin Creevey's brother Dennis hasn't left the body since the end of the battle.

Harry never appreciated Colin. He'd always seen the boy as nothing more than a petty nuisance. But now that he was gone, Harry almost understands him. His zest, his zeal, his energy – it was all so positive. His obsessions, his constantly clicking camera, the way he took snapshots of _life_…all of it was innocent and now he's gone.

And Dennis is talking to the body like it is still here.

How horrible that as soon as someone dies, they lose their identity, their name, their face – they all, at the end of their days, simply become 'the body'.

_The great equalizer_, Harry thinks, _At the end of our lives, we are all 'the body'._

And at the end of this day, all who died are left on his conscience.

It wasn't just those who had died in this battle…it was everyone, anyone, who had ever died for him or because of him. The list just grew and grew…

His parents. Cedric. Sirius. Dumbledore. Lavender Brown. Dobby. Even Snape.

That night, Harry sits alone at the top of the Astronomy Tower.

Somehow, just the fact that the stars are shining seems a grievous offense – an insult to the memory of every person who was lost last night.

Harry looks up at them, hating how they sparkled and shone. Nothing should have the right sparkle or shine when Tonks and Lupin and Colin and Fred and everyone else they lost are buried in the graveyard near the Forbidden Forest.

He just doesn't understand how Ron and Hermione could sit and talk, how anyone could do anything but mourn forever and ever.

The whistling wind whispers in his ear, blowing by, frigid and hard, with edges scraping his cheeks like tiny daggers.

In his mind, he now understands that nothing can constitute or rationalize the loss of a person – a living, breathing soul.

He can almost feel the displaced spirits churning on the icy gusts of wind.

How could any soul go to rest knowing it died for him?

The moon is shining and he hates it. He hates that it's glowing and luminous and white, just like it is every other night. In the sky, this night is no different from every other humdrum night. But for Harry, this night can never be forgotten. It is the first night after the battle, and it cannot be forgotten.

For some reason he thinks that the sky should be cold and black and empty – it should _mourn _for those it lost.

Do stars even know the difference of who lives and dies?

Does anyone?

He thinks for a second, and he realizes that in a hundred years no one will remember who Colin Creevey was or whether Fred Weasley lived or died.

It strikes him like a venom-tipped knife to the gut.

Someday, no one will _understand _what it was like to actually _live _this – to see the rows and rows of gravestones – all with the same date of death, to see someone you _love _slip through your fingers like a grain of sand through an hourglass.

Because that's what they all are, when it gets down to it. All of them, just meaningless grains of sand dripping, dropping, dripping through the hourglass.

He wonders when it will be his time.

They're all dribbling, slipping away. One person can hold on to their life as well as they can hold water in their palm. There's no control – there can't be any control.

And the last few droplets of water slipped away for some of Hogwarts's best last night. He hopes they don't feel they died in vain, wherever they are, beyond the King's Cross.

He supposes that's why the stars still shine. They still shine because those people aren't gone, not forever. They are not gone – they just went on.

And maybe they can watch him through the kaleidoscope lenses of starlight in the sky.

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**Hope you liked it! This was also partly inspired by the After The Battle Challenge at HPFC. :) Please review and give me feedback!**

**Love always,**

**Lily**


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